


homecoming

by chelicerata



Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelicerata/pseuds/chelicerata
Summary: She’d recognize that Chocobo-feather hair anywhere.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	homecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DreamsAtDusk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAtDusk/gifts).



> Happy Trick or Treat! I can’t wait to see how they tackle the rest of Cloud and Tifa’s storyline in the Remake, so here’s a take on some of the ground it hasn't covered yet - I hope you enjoy!

Tifa’s passing by the sector 7 train station, loaded down with shopping bags of supplies for Seventh Heaven (and, buried deep underneath the cherries and olives and mixed nuts, a piece of paper with a list of codes on it that she doesn’t want to think too hard about), when she has the insane, out of nowhere urge to go up on the platform.

She doesn’t know what it is, exactly, only that she can’t move her feet forward another inch, only that there’s a whisper in her ear that she needs to look over and-

Huh.

Is that-

She’d recognize that Chocobo-feather hair anywhere.

“…Cloud? Cloud Strife?”

Cloud Strife – because it _is_ him, it has to be, somehow, here on the other side of the Planet, years and years after he disappeared from her life and then her life burned down around her – is here, in front of her, slumped on the ground against a lamppost in one of Midgar’s filthiest slums. His head is hanging down towards the ground, completely unresponsive.

There’s a giant sword propped up next to him, the type only SOLDIERs use.

She runs over to him, and his head finally twitches up. His eyes are bleary and unfocused, and don’t seem to recognize her – and they’re Mako green.

…What? Is he in SOLDIER? The possibilities swim before her eyes – the failed SOLDIERs, the junkies, kicked out with acute cases of Mako poisoning.

“Cloud, are you- it’s me, it’s Tifa – are you okay?” She drops her bags on the ground to grab his shoulders.

“Tifa? You’re… you’re okay? I thought…” he trails off, staring into the distance.

Had he heard, then? About Nibelheim? She had scoured the papers, when she had first arrived in Midgar, but none of them had mentioned it – why would they, when Shinra could just as easily cover the whole thing up, wipe an entire town off of the map? But maybe he had heard something, in the halls of the Shinra building – maybe he had ended up in SOLDIER after all.

_(And never came home to tell you about it? And didn’t come back when they-)_

“I’m fine, Cloud, I- are _you_ okay? What happened?” His arms are ropy with muscle, but his face is gaunt like he hasn’t eaten right in a week. There are old, dried bloodstains on his clothes.

“I-” he shakes his head, sharp. “I’m- SOLDIER-”

“You’re… you’re in SOLDIER?” She stares at the giant sword. That doesn’t – she doesn’t know why, but that doesn’t seem quite right.

His luminescent eyes blink very slowly, once, twice, mechanically, as he stares at her. He’s focusing better, now, like he’s coming back to himself, but there’s a vacant look there that scares her.

“No- I- I left SOLDIER,” he says. He blinks again, then frowns, and repeats it forcefully. “I _left_ SOLDIER. I’m a mercenary. I’m looking for work.”

Huh. She doesn’t think she’s heard of people _leaving_ SOLDIER, but - looking for work. Okay. She grabs onto that with both hands. That’s something she knows how to handle.

“Oh- well- good! If you’re looking for work, there’s someone I can introduce you to. He’ll have a job for you – unless… you’re not still- if you left SOLDIER, you must not be a fan of Shinra, right?”

She doesn’t even want to mention Nibelheim, not here, not where they don’t deserve it.

His posture is straightening, expression getting clearer as she watches.

“Shinra? Nah. Fuck ‘em.”

“Good,” she says.

“Good,” he echoes. He closes his eyes and shakes his head a little. When he opens them again, he looks- almost normal. “This guy. If he’s got a job, I’m in. As long as he pays. I don’t work for free.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Tifa says, relieved. The strangeness before - it’s – it’s probably just all the Mako. It does things to SOLDIERs. “Let’s get you up, huh?”

Tifa brings him back to Seventh Heaven, puts him up on the couch in the back room. She’ll need to get him his own place. She introduces him to Barret. Barret is… deeply skeptical, but Cloud seems to know how to use that giant sword of his, and Tifa’s been hearing Barret talk about how they’ll need someone else experienced with a weapon, for the mission he’s planning – or at least more experienced than _Wedge._

Cloud is okay around Barret – functional – but afterwards, something in him _changes_ , and his eyes slide out of focus. He clutches his head and stares off into the distance, fixed on a spot she can’t see.

Panic bubbles up in her, before she forces it back down.

Tifa is going to help him get back on his feet. She thinks: it’s going to be fine.

It has to be.

Because- because Cloud, that boy she had known all those years ago- he’s the only thing she has left of Nibelheim, now, the only connection left. If something happens to him, too, then – it’s like Shinra really has won, has wiped their entire village off the map, everyone except for Tifa, alone in this huge, lonely city on the other side of the Planet.

But they have each other, now, and they can get through it together.

They have to.


End file.
